Thank you very much.
Thank you to Senator Martin for coming to the committee.
I would like to follow up with you about the Senate's work on “The Forgotten Many: Human Rights and North Korean Defectors”. You were about to go into the recommendations, I think, and then you ran out of time, so I would like to focus on the recommendations.
Recommendation number one calls for a short-term solution for the North Korean defectors and for the minister to exercise his discretion under section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow the entry into Canada of the most vulnerable North Korean defectors, such as those trapped in Thailand and other third countries, with particular attention to women and children. As well, the initiatives should include a pilot project in Thailand to identify appropriate North Korean candidates for resettlement in Canada. That's your first recommendation.
In that regard we heard earlier today from the officials that the government really only considers refugees if they have been processed and accepted through the UNHCR application process. This would be a group of people who would not fit that criteria. Can you talk a little bit about this first recommendation as a pilot project? Would that be to override the existing policy in place for identifying this group of refugees?